\n<\/p>\n
The UNC system doesn\u2019t have a policy that specifies how syllabi are treated under open-records laws.<\/p>\n
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska and Davizro\/iStock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
As right-wing groups increasingly weaponize Freedom of Information Act requests to expose and dox faculty members who teach about gender, race and diversity, University of North Carolina system campuses are split over whether syllabi and other course materials should be subject to public records requests. <\/p>\n
In July, officials at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill determined that the documents are not automatically subject to such requests after the Oversight Project, founded by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, requested that the university hand over any course materials from more than 70 classes that contained one of 30 words or phrases, including \u201cgender identity,\u201d \u201cintersectionality,\u201d \u201cqueer\u201d and \u201csexuality.\u201d Officials ultimately denied the request, writing, \u201cThere are no existing or responsive University records subject to disclosure under the North Carolina Public Records Act. Course materials, including but not limited to exams, lectures, assignments and syllabi, are the intellectual property of the preparer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The requested materials are protected by copyright policies, a UNC Chapel Hill spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed<\/em>. \u201cThe university has a longstanding practice of recognizing faculty\u2019s intellectual property rights in course materials and does not reproduce these materials in response to public records requests without first asking for faculty consent,\u201d they wrote in an email. <\/p>\n But an hour\u2019s drive west, at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, officials decided just the opposite. Professors were asked to hand over their spring 2025 syllabi in response to a Freedom of Information Act request earlier this fall, said Chuck Bolton, a professor of history at UNC Greensboro and chair of the Faculty Senate. He is among dozens of faculty members who were asked to upload their syllabi into a central database.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Public Records Act is inclusive in its coverage and unless there is an explicit exception, which this is not, it is covered,\u201d UNC Greensboro spokesperson Diana Lawrence said in an email. \u201cAs a matter of public policy, transparency should take [precedence] over questions where there is doubt and we do not believe that the Federal Copyright Act provides a specific exemption or preempts what has been passed in state law.\u201d<\/p>\n Which university is interpreting the law correctly? It\u2019s hard to know, said Hugh Stevens, an attorney who specializes in public records and FOIA law and litigation at the law firm Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych. There is no case law specific to this question, and the answer likely depends on how different course materials\u2014from lecture notes to syllabi to course descriptions\u2014are defined under the law.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s probably a matter of degree,\u201d Stevens said. \u201cSomething that you post online for your class to read, it\u2019s pretty hard to say those are not subject to [public records requests]. But on the other hand, the materials that you use to prepare to teach your class, but which are never published to anybody, are certainly, in my view, copyrightable and proprietary.\u201d <\/p>\n For years, UNC Greensboro put syllabi online as part of an accreditation requirement, said Jeff Jones, a history professor and head of the institution\u2019s American Association of University Professors chapter. After the university\u2019s website was redesigned and accreditation procedures changed, the syllabi were no longer posted. <\/p>\n The UNC system doesn\u2019t have a policy that specifies how syllabi are treated under open-records laws, leaving the decision up to individual campuses. The policy \u201cdoes not discuss distribution of course materials\u201d and \u201cessentially covers the basic functions and procedures involved with records requests,\u201d said UNC system spokesperson Andy Wallace.<\/p>\n But the system does define copyrightable works, which include coursework produced by faculty members, Wallace added. <\/p>\n Lawrence, the Greensboro spokesperson, did not respond to questions about whether the university\u2019s records request was also from the Oversight Project and whether it has already provided the material. The FOIA request has not been made public, but Bolton, the history professor, believes it\u2019s a narrower request than what UNC Chapel Hill received and that it is focused exclusively on syllabi.<\/p>\n The opposing interpretations of the law from two universities in the same public system have left faculty confused and worried about their safety as right-wing groups rifle through course materials for any terminology they don\u2019t like, usually related to gender identity, sexuality or race. Faculty members at Texas A&M University, the University of Houston and George Mason University, among others, have been targeted and sometimes threatened on social media for their instruction and teaching materials. Bolton said he knows of several UNC Greensboro faculty members who have been doxed. <\/p>\n \u201cFaculty have been upset and scared and freaked out about it, because there are people that seem to be [making FOIA requests] because they are trying to create gotcha moments by taking certain things out of context,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n Michael Palm, an associate professor of media and technology studies and cultural studies at UNC Chapel Hill, said in an email that while many faculty are glad Chapel Hill decided not to release the requested course materials, some expressed frustration about the lack of transparency. \u201cWe were disappointed when we learned through news reports that UNC Chapel Hill\u2019s lawyers had decided not to respond to the requests, rather than having that decision communicated to us by administrators,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Some professors are also concerned about how long and how vigorously the university will continue to protect faculty. \u201cWe are all concerned about the increasing political interference into our classrooms and attempts to quash our academic freedom,\u201d said Erik Gellman, a history professor at Chapel Hill. <\/p>\n Bolton, at UNC Greensboro, has similar worries.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a tough time for universities,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of attacks coming from a lot of different directions, and that increases the anxiety and anger on behalf of the faculty, because we know that these kinds of things are not being done just because people want to find out what\u2019s on our syllabus for intellectual reasons. They\u2019re doing it for more nefarious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UNC system doesn\u2019t have a policy that specifies how syllabi are treated under open-records laws. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Liudmila Chernetska and Davizro\/iStock\/Getty Images As right-wing groups increasingly weaponize Freedom of Information Act requests to expose and dox faculty members who teach about gender, race and diversity, University of North<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[10499,5259,177,3571,16245,6149],"class_list":{"0":"post-29120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-campuses","9":"tag-documents","10":"tag-public","11":"tag-split","12":"tag-syllabi","13":"tag-unc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}